Twenty five years ago, on this day, May 8th, another ignored warning,
Canberra – Pressure mounted on the Australian government on Tuesday to resume international climate change talks after a report by a government agency foreshadowed a dramatic surge in temperatures in the next 70 years.
Australia’s key government research organisation, the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), predicted a drier and hotter Australia, with average temperatures rising by up to six percent by 2070.
“Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases are the culprit,” head of CSIRO’s atmospheric research group Peter Whetton said in a statement.
Cox, G. 2001. Overheating Australia needs ‘wake-up call’. IOL 8 May.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 371ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that scientists have been warning about carbon dioxide build up for a very long time. There had been warnings and warnings and warnings. There had been the Brian Tucker monograph 1981. In the same year, there had been the secret Office of National Assessments report on fossil fuels and the greenhouse effect. From 1986 the Australian Environment Council, and onward and onward, but none of it had landed.
The specific context was that the Millennium drought is ongoing, and the IPCC Third Assessment Report has come out but none of it is going to really shift the dial, because little Johnnie Howard is a scumbag.
What I think we can learn from this is that we as a species, struggle with the long-term, we struggle with collective cognition, shall we say? And it was more comfortable simply to ignore the truth, especially if everyone else was doing it.
What happened next. More warnings, more please. Reminds me of this cartoon by the late great John Kudelka – “Is this thing on?” Oh, my Lord.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
This marvellous book is about much more than how it feels to be alive and aware on a changing planet. It’s about how it feels to want not only to stay alive and aware ourselves, but for our children and grandchildren to do so too, while truthful awareness painfully requires facing the knowledge of the avoidable death and extinction of all we love through the burning of the planet. Kate Marvel begins by quoting poet Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself: “I am large, I contain multitudes.”. Like Whitman, and as a grandparent and psychologist (with a career stretching back through a lot of yesterdays) I too contain multitudes and am glad to feel the resonance with such a gifted storytelling scientist as this nominally determinative writer. I agree when she says that we can be good, if we choose to be, and that there is no such thing as “human nature” (though who chose the book’s title?), and that we humans contain squabbling contradictions, both within and between ourselves. It’s reminiscent of an earlier important book: Why we Disagree About Climate Change (2009) by climate scientist Mike Hulme, who like Marvel, explained that because climate change shapes the way people think about ourselves, communicating well about it requires a mixture of scientific knowledge, personal experience and human imagination. Humanness involves storytelling, while physics and cosmology are immune to our desires and meanings. In her book Kate weaves human emotional meanings with the certainties and uncertainties of the science of complex systems, reminding us that the only place we can live is here within the limits of a gentle climate. Survival, such as it might now be, requires us to face the complexity of our emotions, the fragility of our defences and the powers of our interdependence with one another, including the more than human species with whom we share the planet.
Marvel explores nine feelings: wonder, anger, guilt, fear, grief, surprise, pride, hope and love. She creates a compelling blend of scientific knowledge with mythology and history, illuminated by her own life and loves for her children, people, places and creatures – and with a shocking revelation in the final chapter. As a cosmologist, she is well able to conjure wonder and awe for the fragility and beauty of the earth, and for the science that enables the modelling of what is happening – echoed now by the astronaut crew of the 2026 Artemis moon shot. Her anger is directed at the idea that things are hopeless, and that humans have to accept the inevitability of climate catastrophe. As a scientist she calls for the necessary and huge experiment to reshape society and culture in ways that would enable us to mitigate future harm and adapt fairly to what is baked in already (an experiment that could well draw from indigenous ways of life that modernity and colonialism have all but stamped out). In the chapter on guilt she tells of the Little Ice Age between 1550 and 1880, and how in the search for responsibility for the bad cold weather the most powerless were singled out to blame – largely women, thousands of whom were executed for witchcraft. It is not hard to see the resonances of victim blaming now, as misogyny rises, and asylum seekers and refugees are falsely accused of causing societal ill, while the rich and powerful spread disinformation and clamp down on protest. Marvel says that the most frightening thing about climate change is what it will make us do to one another.
Grief is in the centre at the heart of the book: conjuring death, mourning, and our anticipatory grief for all that is to be lost and squandered, all happening frighteningly fast and much, although not all, now inevitable: “the breaking of billions of hearts all at once”. Surprise comes in the form of an on-screen climate story for teenagers in which the teenagers rightly ask: wasn’t this story told way back in the 1970s (and as readers of this blog know, many decades before that too). Why didn’t you act?, they ask. On pride, Marvel alerts us to the dangers of hubris, explaining how geo-engineering stands little chance of making a substantive difference relative to the absolute necessity of stopping carbon emissions and generating renewable energy sources. She rightly calls for the other world that is possible: “one where the power to make decisions about the climate is invested in the people, not corporations or billionaires.” And on hope, she summons up the potential of people coming together, collectively doing our best, generating positive stories to help generate the sort of world we want to live in and working to bring the stories to life.
Marvel’s final chapter is on love: being alive, although risky and dangerous, can be joyful, wild and lovely. Change for good has happened before, many times, and it can happen now, if enough of us determine so. This book must surely help our determination.
Twenty four years ago, on this day, May 7th, 2002,
The Australian mining industry still has a long way to go in its quest for sustainable development, but a major report on the sector has found it has made considerable progress in meeting its social and environmental obligations. WMC chief executive, Hugh Morgan, will today unveil the Facing the Future report, which investigated the Australian mining industry as part of the Global Mining Initiative undertaken by the world’s biggest miners.
Howarth, I. 2002. Report card on mining industry to be unveiled. Australian Financial Review, May 7, p. 14.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 373ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that there had been repeated greenwash efforts in Australia around mining and the environment, stretching back to the 70s, probably earlier. One of my favourites was AMEEF launched in 1991.
Anyway, here we see reality catching up with the mining industry. Glossy books were published but the reality was that nothing substantive was being done, because doing anything would cost loads of money or mean not progressing with profitable projects, and neither of those is going to fly in the C suite and at the AGM with the shareholders, who are interested in returns and dividends. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together, and the courage to use them, ultimately knows this.
The specific context was that the Howard Government was clearly not going to ratify Kyoto, or put any constraints at all on the ability of the mining companies to do whatever the hell they wanted.
What I think we can learn from this. It’s all kayfabe.
What happened next. More reports, more pleas for capitalism and industrialism and humanity to act in its long term interest. Meanwhile, the waste remains and the damage accumulates,
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Seventy three years ago, on this day, May 6th, 1953,
The Hobart Mercury runs a story on the presentation by Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Washington DC.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 313ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that in the 19th century scientists had figured out that something must be trapping a certain amount of the Sun’s heat from bouncing back into space. Eunice Foote and John Tyndall had figured out it was carbon dioxide (aka carbonic acid). At the end of the 19th century Svante Arrhenius had said that – over thousands of years – man’s release of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels would heat the planet. In 1938 British steam engineer Guy Callendar said it probably wouldn’t take that long.
The specific context was that World War Two had boosted the ability of humans to collect data and to analyse it. Plass had access to data and computers. And had ‘institutional heft’, being at Johns Hopkins University.
What I think we can learn from this is that the idea we might toast ourselves was well-reported a very long time ago.
What happened next. Sixteen years later a Tasmanian chemistry professor warned the Senate Committee looking at Air Pollution about carbon dioxide.
The emissions kept climbing…
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
The seventh edition of the CO2 Newsletter, (Vol. 2, no. 1) published bi-monthly by American geologist William N. Barbat between 1979 and 1982 is live. You can download a pdf and see the full text here.
The eight page issue has a front page story pointing out that “Hottest summers result in lowest summer rainfall in the five ‘Wheat Belt’ states” Barbat does a good job (as ever) in being fair and balanced. At one point he notes
Projections of cyclic global temperatures with an added CO2 greenhouse effect (at 2 to 3° C global temperature rise for a CO2 doubling) give an expectation of global temperatures warmer than the dustbowl era before 2000 (e). Good analogies are not available to predict what climatic effect a continued CO2 increase and further global warming might produce eventually, other than past global warmings have generally been accompanied by a widening and slight poleward shift of the semi- tropical arid belts.
There’s also an editorial, feedback from readers, excerpts from recent reports and a concluding article “A need for rational answers about energy.”
It remains heart-breaking, of course. Barbat’s editorial begins
Whether the divisiveness of the previous decade will end with the November 4 elections in the US. remains to be seen. Some express hope the ‘me’ decade is ending and the ‘we’ decade is beginning, which would help greatly is combating the CO2 problem.
Potential impacts of the CO2 buildup appear to represent by far the largest, most serious, man caused environmental problem that the world will face in the not-too-distant future. Because the threat of famines from climate change and of mass migrations due both to hunger and the potential sea level rise will impact almost everybody, the CO2 problem should be expected to bring together opposing factions on environmental and energy problems. Any delay in closing ranks to halt the CO2 buildup is seen by some knowledgeable workers as leading to more human grief.
Forty six years ago, on this day, May 5th, 1980, Frank Press writes to President Jimmy Carter
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that American scientists had been trying to raise the alarm for some years about carbon dioxide, and even before his inauguration, Carter was being lobbied in December ‘76 about the CO2 issue. And from early days, early in ‘77 that had been ongoing, his Chief Scientific Advisor, Frank Press, was, I think it’s fair to say, relatively lukewarm on the issue. He had been lobbied in early ‘77 by, I think Weinberg and someone else.
In 1979, Press had, perhaps feeling a little bit cornered on the CO2 issue, asked the National Academies of Science people, especially Jule Charney, to look into the question. And the Charney report that had said, basically, there’s no reason to believe that if we continue putting vast quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere, then the temperature will do anything other than rise markedly.
The specific context was that here we are in an election year, and Frank Press has already chided Gus Speth of the Council on Environmental Quality, about CO2 as a non issue. We’ve already had the Global 2000 report, which mentions CO2, and Press writing to Carter, minimising what the Charney folks wrote, because a slightly more equivocal report had been produced by an ‘ad hoc panel’…
What I think we can learn from this. is that chief scientific advisors are human beings with their own biases and blind spots and while there was a much bigger scientific awareness in the States than in the UK, there was still the roadblock of politics. I’m not saying that Frank Press was anywhere near as bad as the Met Office’s John Mason…
What happened next. Well, Carter lost the 1980 election, the Council on Environmental Quality released a report in the interim period before Reagan took office. Reagan was a catastrophe on so many levels, and it would be 1988 before policy making around climate change was even spoken of.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
– My question is directed to either the Minister for Science or the Minister representing the Minister for National Resources. I ask whether the Minister is aware that the solar energy report of the Senate Standing Committee on National Resources states:
There is no Australian energy policy and in the absence of any central direction to co-ordinate a search for alternatives, the complacency that currently exists will continue.
Is the Minister aware also that the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Thomas, endorsed at least the first part of that statement this morning on the radio program AM? Does the Minister agree with that proposition? If not, is he able to indicate what is the energy policy of the Government?
Senator WITHERS:
WESTERN AUSTRALIA · LP
-I shall take this question as I think it properly belongs in the area of responsibility of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for National Resources. I have not had the advantage of reading the report put down in the Senate yesterday by my friend and colleague, Senator Thomas. Therefore, I think it would be unfortunate if, not having read the report, I were to make any comment on it. However, as the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate has drawn my attention to it, I shall look at it and certainly shall draw the honourable senator’s comments to the attention of my colleague in the other place . https://historichansard.net/senate/1977/19770505_senate_30_s73/#subdebate-3-0
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 334ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that there had been interest in solar energy, especially in the aftermath of the first oil shock, ‘73-74 but that with the return of a Liberal National Government, some of that enthusiasm melted away.
The specific context was that there were lots of attempts at energy investigations and so on. (What’s interesting here is that thanks to what’s being said in Parliament, you can learn what is and isn’t being said on the radio, and to a lesser extent, the television and TV and radio are much harder things to research than newspapers.)
What I think we can learn from this is that when you have plentiful supplies of coal, investigating solar seems stupid and unfriendly to the incumbents, and people who are unfriendly to the incumbents tend not to prosper in our political systems.
What happened next. Solar energy advocates kept banging on, largely ignored. There was a petition in late ‘77. Solar only really took off in the 2010s onwards.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2026 it is 4xxppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that Congress had been holding hearings about carbon dioxide build up since, well, the first ones I can find are the Tsongas one in 1977 (and a bigger one in 1980). And there had been plenty of others through the course of the 1980s. Famously, in December 1985 Carl Sagan had explained the greenhouse effect and the need to do something about it to Senators. Then in ‘87 push the aftermath of Villach gained momentum and adherence and various American NGOs with three or four letter acronyms,
And in 1988 their push succeeded, and the issue broke through.
The specific context was that George H. W. Bush had won the 1988 election, and on the campaign trail, he had promised to convene an international meeting. It was becoming obvious, however, that the Bush administration was not going to listen to scientists like James Hansen. It was instead going to listen to people who were telling it convenient truths.,
What I think we can learn from this. that politics is the long hammering of hard boards, as per Max Weber.
What happened next. Bush was exposed as silencing Hansen by Al Gore. And then the following year, Bush tried to not invite Bert Bolin, the head of the IPCC, to his much-delayed international conference.
And the emissions climbed, the concentrations climbed and doom approaches.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
I went to a student meeting. I am not a student. It was excruciating, obvs. Not because they were students, but because it could have been so much better but wasn’t, for the usual reasons. We are so doomed.
There’s a scene in George Orwell’s masterpiece (imo, ymmv) Animal Farm. The animals – the chickens, cows, Boxer etc, have just received such a face slap that they can no longer lie to themselves about what has happened to “their” Farm and their beloved Revolution. They can no longer pretend to themselves that they have not exchanged the drunken boot of Mr Jones for the trotter and paws of the pigs and the dogs. They walk down to a meadow and they start to sing what was the revolutionary song, Beasts of England. This below is a very long quote, but I put it in because it captures what Orwell was aiming at so beautifully, and it is worth your time.
The animals huddled about Clover, not speaking. The knoll where they were lying gave them a wide prospect across the countryside. Most of Animal Farm was within their view–the long pasture stretching down to the main road, the hayfield, the spinney, the drinking pool, the ploughed fields where the young wheat was thick and green, and the red roofs of the farm buildings with the smoke curling from the chimneys. It was a clear spring evening. The grass and the bursting hedges were gilded by the level rays of the sun. Never had the farm–and with a kind of surprise they remembered that it was their own farm, every inch of it their own property–appeared to the animals so desirable a place. As Clover looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she could have spoken her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to work for the overthrow of the human race. These scenes of terror and slaughter were not what they had looked forward to on that night when old Major first stirred them to rebellion. If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak, as she had protected the lost brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the night of Major’s speech. Instead–she did not know why–they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes. There was no thought of rebellion or disobedience in her mind. She knew that, even as things were, they were far better off than they had been in the days of Jones, and that before all else it was needful to prevent the return of the human beings. Whatever happened she would remain faithful, work hard, carry out the orders that were given to her, and accept the leadership of Napoleon. But still, it was not for this that she and all the other animals had hoped and toiled. It was not for this that they had built the windmill and faced the bullets of Jones’s gun. Such were her thoughts, though she lacked the words to express them.
At last, feeling this to be in some way a substitute for the words she was unable to find, she began to sing Beasts of England. The other animals sitting round her took it up, and they sang it three times over–very tunefully, but slowly and mournfully, in a way they had never sung it before.
They had just finished singing it for the third time when Squealer, attended by two dogs, approached them with the air of having something important to say. He announced that, by a special decree of Comrade Napoleon, Beasts of England had been abolished. From now onwards it was forbidden to sing it.
The animals were taken aback.
“Why?” cried Muriel.
“It’s no longer needed, comrade,” said Squealer stiffly. “Beasts of England was the song of the Rebellion. But the Rebellion is now completed. The execution of the traitors this afternoon was the final act. The enemy both external and internal has been defeated. In Beasts of England we expressed our longing for a better society in days to come. But that society has now been established. Clearly this song has no longer any purpose.”
Frightened though they were, some of the animals might possibly have protested, but at this moment the sheep set up their usual bleating of “Four legs good, two legs bad,” which went on for several minutes and put an end to the discussion.
So Beasts of England was heard no more.
[end of chapter 7, since you ask].
I think about that scene a lot, whenever I attend (okay, hate-attend) meetings of groups that say they are undertaking the difficult task of unfucking the world. Last night I thought about that scene a lot. “What’s my scene?” as the Hoodoo Gurus used to sing (probably still do?)
”I’m a betting man, but it’s getting damn lonely…”
The meeting started late. While we waited there was no invocation to “turn to someone you don’t know (well) – firm allies once didn’t know each other once, and we need to thicken the webs of loose (and close) ties, because you may have skills and resources that someone else could really use.” Or something warmer. Who cares. Something. Anything.
There was no gentle way to bring silence and commence the meeting. What happened to the chair raising their arms above their head and then other people following? XR used to do that and it was good – far better than tentative and then-more forceful/desperate announcements/shouts, which is what we got.
There was no gentle welcome, asking us to centre ourselves, to think about our responsibilities to make a better movement, and the opportunities the meeting held for that. Instead we were told things we knew, with jargon that would almost certainly alienate a ‘newbie’. Then we had two Zoom connections from interstate. These were mercifully not as long as anticipated, but neither were they in any way surprising. What was astonishing (to me – I am clearly old and out of touch) was that people responded to a guy on zoom who wanted them to repeat the second half of a (carefully chosen to avoid further legal imbroglios) chant. I did not know that was a thing, and – to quote another song – “I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.”
He left us with the hope that he would see us at a ‘big mobilisation in the future.’ Everyone’s happy place, I guess.
Then – and this still staggers me – it was over to ‘debating’ two motions to some upcoming student congress or conference basically ‘demanding’ (yeah, good luck with that) the Australian Government do x or y that they were plainly, obviously, never going to do. So, we were to debate things that
Nobody in the room was likely to have any disagreement with (certainly not one they show in public)
Were never going to be enacted.
And this is how you build an empowered, strategic and competent movement. Oh yes.
So, the speeches to the motion (nobody was asked to specify if they were speaking for or against – it was clear, man, that everyone was, you know, in favour) were all pure Dave Spart. As I said to a friend this morning, I had the fleeting thought that I was in some incredibly elaborate social psychology experiment where everyone else in the room was in on the gig – that this was playacting those scenes in Monty Python’s Life of Brian where the People’s Front of Judea you know, like, debate important motions about the Roman, you know, Empire, man. There were, perhaps, people with clipboards and stop watches waiting to see how long I could stick it out (as per that early-ish episode of the TV show Community).
But no, it was all on the up and up. “build a movement”, “class politics” “expose it as a system” “full on orwellian um censorship.” “It’ really important, you know, strength of this movement”
It was mildly interesting that the entire first motion got ‘debated’ with only men delivering their pearls of wisdom. [Audience demographics – 50 people present, 45 under the age of 25, I’d guess. Male/female roughly 50/50. Overwhelmingly white] I wondered how long this would continue- the whole meeting? But then in motion 2 some women piped up. Matters did not improve. Who knew that women could be just as jargon-y and dreary as the menfolk? It’s almost as if it’s the human condition.
We’re so toast. As per Frank Turner
Well it was bad enough the feeling, on the first time it hit,
When you realised that your parents had let the world all go to shit,
And that the values and ideals for which many had fought and died
Had been killed off in the committees and left to die by the wayside.
But it was worse when we turned to the kids on the left,
And got let down again by some poor excuse for protest –
By idiot fucking hippies in fifty different factions
Who are locked inside some kind of Sixties battle re-enactment.
So I hung up my banner in disgust and I head for the door.
Have a gentle way of starting, of centering people.
Design the meeting not around (non)violent agreement with two shitty motions (lobbying the Labor government is no more ‘radical’ than lobbying the Labor Party, my Dave Spartolescent friend) but around a set of questions that can be answered by a mix of on-paper answers (means good ideas don’t get discarded because they come from Miss Triggs) and small group discussions) around
What are we doing that we need to do we need to more of and what skills/knowledge/relationships do we lack to do that?
What are we NOT doing that would be good to do that we are not doing because we lack skills/knowledge/relationships – where do we get those?
What are we doing that feels good, but actually doesn’t contribute to the likely success (or slower failure) of “our “movement” (‘man’) to like, you know, bring down, you know, the capitalist imperialist, you know, system, man.”
Shoot me. Shoot me now. NOW, dammit.
There is no hope
It won’t be done differently. We lack the absorptive capacity, the impetus to develop that. The incentive structures are all wrong.
These meetings are about managing our despair, about knowing that the pigs and their dogs have won, and that all we can do is soothe-sing to ourselves and each other. We sing Beasts of England. Some of the lyrics get banned, but the song remains the same.
We will never put ourselves under any pressure to innovate, because there is a stable system for the gaining of activist credibility tokens, and why upset it?
Meanwhile, the bodies pile up and the emissions pile up. I wonder what those in the majority world, on the receiving end of the slow violence and fast violence dished out by the Empire and its proxies would think of events like the one I went to last night. Nothing printable. “Building a movement” my very fat arse. No more hate-attending for me, methinks.
Twenty five years ago, on this day, May 3rd, 2001,
The executive director of the GCP said in a Senate estimates hearing on May 3, 2001 that only one in 10 companies had met their emission reduction targets. (See also Report of the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee, “The Heat Is On: Australia’s Greenhouse Future”, chapter 8.)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 371ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that Australian political elites had been made aware of climate change as a threat in the 1970s; you had the Australian Academy for the Advancement of Science, Australian Academy of Science Symposium in September of 1980 you had the monograph that came out of that on the CO2 problem. You had the Office of National Assessments report. And, of course, from 1987 onwards, you had the CSIRO etc, banging the drum. Oh, you’d also had the Australian Environment Council, in 1986
Business had defeated a couple of proposals to put a price on carbon dioxide, (which is the only language they understand), first during the ESD ecologically sustainable development process, and then in 1994-95 they had defeated the carbon tax, and instead the Keating government had created a worse-than-useless “greenhouse challenge” voluntary scheme.
The specific context was that the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had come out, and George W Bush had pulled the US out of negotiating the Kyoto Protocol. It was pretty clear that if Howard were to win the upcoming election, he would do the same, whereas Labor would ratify.
What I think we can learn from this. This talk of “waking up” or “being woken up” has been going on for so long, and we prefer to be asleep.. And here we learn that, of the companies that had set emissions reductions targets, which was not all of them, by any means, only one in 10 were hitting those targets. So an adult government that gave a shit about more than its own comfort and power would change course. It would say, “we’ve tried the voluntary approach, it didn’t work,” and would legislate. That is, of course, reader, not what happened, and John Howard and his gang of fuckwits have condemned us all to hell.
What happened next. The Greenhouse Challenge was rebooted with very similar effects and finally basically ignored. There was a fierce battle over a carbon price between 2006 and 2012 and then in 2014 the carbon price was abolished by Tony Abbott, the thug disguised as a prime minister.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
